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Popular Science

Awe-inspiring science, tech, and DIY. 146 years strong.

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A key tool to fighting the opioid crisis is in short supply Opioid overdoses killed 47,000 Americans in 2017. Many fewer would have died if they'd been treated with the life saving drug naloxone, also called Narcan.

I spent 13 hours trying to make mac and cheese in a bag. It was a disaster.I never thought it was possible to be sick of mac and cheese. Now? I’m not so sure. After Panera Bread found itself at the center of a social media maelstrom for its totally reasonable method of warming up its cheesy pasta by soaking sealed bags of it in hot water, something clicked in the collective Popular Science mind: Could we make it? From scratch? In… plastic bags?

Bed bugs once ate bat blood—so why do they bite us?A line of unidentified bites on your arms or legs might have sent you on a Google-spiral and landed you here. Don’t panic: Getting rid of a bed bug infestation is complicated, but far from impossible. And if you’re worried about bringing bugs home, you can take steps to prevent that from happening. The first step is to understand bed bugs.

Last week in tech: Google’s Pixel 4, Fortnite’s apocalypse, and space pajamas Listen to the latest episode of the Techathlon Podcast.

The best reusable straws for sipping your smoothie Help the environment by ditching plastic straws for food-safe, reusable straws in metal, glass, or silicone.

What has hundreds of sexes and excels at math? This is Slime Molds 101.“The Blob” is way less mysterious than some have reported—but it's still really awesome.

Global warming is forcing species to reorganize their ecosystems While extinction is a global issue, individual biomes—tropical seas, temperate forests, arctic tundra—face a different dilemma. Instead of a loss in the total number of species. we’re seeing a reshuffling of life at local habitats, as a study published Thursday in Science reports.

How The North Face uses a spiderweb-like layer in its new jackets to keep you dry If you’ve ever sported a waterproof, breathable rain jacket, you can credit a special kind of membrane in it for keeping you dry but letting your sweat escape.

How to buy tech gear safely online Online shopping is convenient, but you can be taken for a ride if you’re not careful—especially when buying tech gear. It’s easy for dodgy dealers to sell counterfeit products to unsuspecting consumers, and it’s not a fringe issue: you can unwittingly buy fraudulent items on big sites such as Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and Newegg.

Gender and class inequalities haven't really changed for 4,000 years Researchers reconstructed family trees and traced migration patterns to reveal a depth of social complexity and inequality previously lost to time.

How to keep screen light from disrupting your sleep An eye doctor says that any bright light, including from computers, can interfere with sleep.

The most astonishing wildlife photos of 2019 range from meme-able to political This year’s London Natural History Museum winners tracked colonies of army ants through the rainforest, camped out in snow-covered deserts, and hid behind underwater shipwrecks in an effort to showcase the diverse majesty of wild places and beings.

Rig your smartphone to take next-level photos and videos A rig can help take smartphone photography and videography to the next step.

Five multi-cookers that'll change the way you cook These slow cookers and pressure cookers will upgrade your meals.

These accessories that will make your smartphone even better You’ve made it. Maybe you saved for a long time, or you convinced your partner to get one for you on your birthday, but the smartphone of your dreams is finally in your hands. You think things just cannot get any better, but we’re here to tell you that you are wrong—they definitely can.

Just four excellent hot sauces Sweet, vinegar-y, fiery hot sauces you'll want to try.

Hate raking leaves? There's an easier method.By letting foliage naturally decompose, you’re giving your lawn a boost, too.

The weirdest things we learned this week: Deadly rainbows, face blindness, and mysterious pink snow What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast.

Here’s what would happen if you worked out like a Strongman Tthe tagline of his website—“strongman is for everyone”—isn’t just talk.

Who uses Photoshop on a Mars selfie?Hallie Abarca had to double as a photo editor in the critical moments after InSight touched down.

High-powered food processors for the home chef The next time you're making cole slaw, hummus, or pesto, save time and energy cooking with one of these food processors.

The Pixel 4's new radar sensor lets you control your phone without touching it These new gesture-sensing capabilities in Google products are meant to change the way we interact with our gadgets.

Science-based coloring books for adults and children alike Make art inspired by biology, astronomy, and chemistry.

Four ways to make beef more sustainable When it comes to beef’s impact on the environment, there’s a lot of room for improvement. Right now, 35 percent of methane emissions in the United States come from livestock, and the largest contributor is grazing animals like cows. The good news is, scientists have identified a number of ways to cut greenhouse gases coming from bovines. Here are a few of the most promising ones.

Seven science fiction inventions that became reality Since the dawn of science fiction, authors have regularly predicted the appearance of technologies, from the defribrillator to the iPod.

How to secure your apartment-provided Wi-Fi Sharing a Wi-Fi network with a bunch of strangers isn’t a great way to keep your data private. Taking the necessary precautions is easy when you’re using a single laptop on free coffee shop Wi-Fi. But things start to get complicated when you’re at home, with dozens of devices all available anyone living in the same building? Or that man from two floors down who always lets you say hi to his chocolate labrador. He seems like the kind of person whose laptop is filled with malware and he doesn’t even know it, does he?

Behind the looking glass of the world’s biggest telescope A tour of the Richard Carris Mirror Lab, which is casting 126 tons of glass for the Giant Magellan Telescope.

What astronaut diaries tell us about the perils of a mission to Mars For 13 years, 20 astronauts typed their feelings into massive files that could fill Russian novels. Anthropologist Jack Stuster read and analyzed them for the world.

Among Hurricane Harvey's many bad effects: riskier childbirth for women In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, people affected by the storm faced a host of physical and mental health problems, including skin infections, respiratory problems, and post traumatic stress disorder. A new study adds to that list: People giving birth in the storm’s wake had an increased risk of medical complications, as did their newborns.

Let's watch Google announce its Pixel 4 Smartphone and more Google is making its Pixel 4 smartphone—and maybe a few surprises—official.

These scientists are pioneering new fields on the fringes of existing science From engineering to public health, researchers are creating new areas of scientific study.

Where do you park when you dive thousands of feet into the ocean?There's a lot to learn from creatures that lives in deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

how to clean your smartphone properly You can't see it with the naked eye, but your smartphone is likely to be crawling with bacteria—perhaps even with more than your toilet seat. Yes, that's a lot of dangerous microbes floating around, and yes, it is gross.

15 trees everyone who loves the outdoors should learn to identify If you want to be a true outdoorsman or woman, and a true survivor, you’ve got to become a plant person.

Inside NASA's plan to use Martian dirt to build houses on Mars Humans on the Red Planet might draw power from the sun, mine water from buried ice, and harvest oxygen from the atmosphere. With NASA’s encouragement, architects, engineers, and scientists are exploring how early residents might use recycled waste and the planet’s loose rock and dust to craft tools, erect homes, pave launchpads and roads, and more.

How many of these troubling kid gadgets do you remember?Listen to the latest episode of the Techathlon podcast in which we discuss

This 25-foot-long dino discovery suggests raptors roamed farther than we realized Siamraptor may have roamed in packs or family groups and even cooperated to bring down prey,

This Is Why Your Kid Has Been Acting Weird for the Last 24 Hours My 12-year-old son was a bright, inquisitive kid, and loved the outdoors. He was deeply into birdwatching, could play outside occasionally for literally minutes at a time, and enjoyed The Simpsons, Scrubs, The Good Place and Parks and Recreation. He...

Why are meat companies fighting over labels on plant-based foods?Meat producers in many states are lobbying to keep the word meat off labels of plant-based products like the Impossible Burger.

how to make an Instagram filter Ah, Instagram—my life, my love, my doom. Lusting over other people’s vacations and brunch outings is an official hobby of mine, but as much as I love scrolling endlessly through the beautiful lives of people I mostly don’t know, I love Stories more. They’re quick, they’re easy, and their limited lifespan allows me to be as silly as I want without ruining my whole grid aesthetic.

'SNL' Finally Delivers with Host David Harbour, a Brilliant 'Joker' Parody, and a Solid Cold Open The first two episodes of the 45th season of SNL can charitably be described as "hit and miss," and by that, I mostly mean a wardrobe malfunction and a host so good that SNL couldn't completely diminish her talents have...

Eliud Kipchoge just ran a marathon in less than two hours—how much faster does science say humans can get?On Saturday morning, Eliud Kipchoge accomplished a feat that athletes and scientists alike had long speculated might be impossible.

Build your own drawer organizer Think about your kitchen drawers. They’re probably a mess. Even if you purchased some drawer organizers, they weren’t built for your particular drawers or all the stuff you’ve managed to shove in them. To truly maximize your storage space and keep your stacks of utensils looking tidy, you’ve got to build your own.

The government's plan to collect migrant DNA could send us down a slippery slope for surveillance Experts say the plan to expand the FBI’s criminal database could usher in a new age of genetic surveillance.

Last week in tech: Google’s gaming controller, Facebook’s crypto troubles, and the PlayStation 5 Catch up on the week's biggest news including Google's first gaming controller.

Why we're still obsessed with the watches astronauts wore to the moon What’s more rugged than a watch that can handle the vacuum of space?

Here’s the skinny on what actually flavors a pumpkin spice latte What actually goes into a pumpkin spice latte? The Starbucks website provides only a vague list of the current ingredients, which include espresso, whipped cream, milk, “pumpkin spice sauce,” and a blend of pumpkin pie spices.

Subscription boxes that’ll have you waiting by the door Monthly subscription boxes to explore foods, try out beauty products, and teach your children.

You can actually be allergic to exercise Exercise induced anaphylaxis is treatable, but doctors don't know why it happens.

5 tricks to solve connectivity problems Connectivity woes are among some of the most common and frustrating tech problems. If your gadgets are going to be useful, then they need to be talking to each other properly, and all too often that isn’t the case.